Ben Affleck says he used AI for “lots of things” in his new Netflix film, and calls the fear around it “propaganda”

Ben Affleck has confirmed that his new Netflix thriller was made with the help of AI, and he says the fear around the technology is mostly “propaganda”. Speaking to Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw at the Bloomberg Screentime event in Los Angeles on Wednesday, the actor and director said he used AI “for lots of things” on Animals, which opens in select cinemas and on Netflix on October 9.

He wouldn’t say which scenes. That reluctance, and his blunt dismissal of AI doom, made his remarks some of the most widely shared of the event.

“It sort of ruins it”

Affleck directed Animals, co-wrote it with Connor O. McIntyre and Billy Ray, and stars in it as a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped. Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun and Gillian Anderson are also in the cast. Asked how AI was used, he compared revealing it to a magician giving away a trick:

I’m a little bit hesitant to point out what they are, or even talk about it, because in my business, we’re trying to foster the illusion of reality, right? It’s sort of like if you went to a magic show and the magician walked out and said, ‘Just before I start, I want you to know there’s another bunny under here.’

Ben Affleck, at Bloomberg Screentime

He said the film was “a good example” of using AI well precisely because it is “a very human movie. It’s not in space, it doesn’t have visual effects.” The tools let the team “move in some cases more quickly, really mostly in post-production, to do things that otherwise we wouldn’t have been able to do,” he said.

He sold his AI company to Netflix

Affleck isn’t a neutral observer. He quietly founded InterPositive, an AI company building tools for film post-production, in 2022, and sold it to Netflix earlier this year for $587 million, according to Deadline, which says Netflix confirmed the figure. He now advises the streamer.

Shaw put to him the cynical reading of that deal: that Netflix bought the company so it could do “despicable things” with AI while a respected filmmaker provided cover. “Well, that’s a very cynical view indeed,” Affleck said, adding that Netflix needs “to be in business with people” and has been “super judicious”.

He said he spends time showing directors what the tools can do, such as changing a background, and that their fear fades once they try it. Films using the tools, he said, have “the same number of people. In fact, more people, technically, are being employed.” He didn’t give figures, and Netflix hasn’t published any.

“I don’t worry about Skynet”

Affleck was most dismissive of the idea that AI is an existential threat, describing the talk of it as a “nebulous abstract terrifying alien” that’s “gonna kill us all like we’re paper clips” as “all this propaganda”. That puts him firmly on one side of a debate that has run through politics this month, from Donald Trump mocking warnings at the UN that AI will “kill us all” to lawmakers trying to ban superintelligence outright.

His worries are closer to home:

When I worry about AI, I worry about like my kids in school. I worry about learned helplessness. I worry about responsible use. I don’t worry about Skynet and I don’t think that it’s going to take over this business in any meaningful way. I think it’s going to be additive.

Ben Affleck, at Bloomberg Screentime

He also said he doesn’t believe AI can make “a movie that people want to see” from a typed prompt alone, and called it “another form of computing” in line with the long run of new technology in film and television.

The full interview is on Bloomberg Live’s YouTube channel:

Why it matters

Studios have mostly kept quiet about where they use AI, wary of a backlash from actors, writers and audiences. A bankable star openly saying a big Netflix release used it throughout makes that harder to keep quiet, though Affleck’s refusal to say where, and his $587 million stake in the outcome, mean viewers are being asked to take his word for how “human” the result is.

Sources: Bloomberg Live, “Ben Affleck on AI and Hollywood Economics” (video); Fox News; Deadline; The Hollywood Reporter.